According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, 12 per cent of Canadians’ trips to the grocery store, work, the library or school are on foot or by bicycle, compared with 46 per cent in the Netherlands, where urban design and policies encourage active transportation.

Canadian municipalities were awarded a D-minus for their planning efforts in the 2011 annual report card on child and youth physical activity conducted by Active Healthy Kids Canada.

But urban planning solutions aren’t black and white, as the Queen’s study illustrates, and a lot more research is needed, notes Stephanie Prince Ware of the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa.

People’s perceptions of how easy or difficult it is to access green space, for example, can be as powerful as the reality. The parental role model is also important.

About HALO

The Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group (HALO) was established in 2007 in response to the escalating obesity crisis and the increasing complexity of related co-morbidities. Today the HALO team consists of 16 staff (including 6 researchers), a childhood obesity clinical team (Centre for Healthy Active Living), 12 graduate students, and many community volunteers. Since its inception in 2007, HALO has received over $8.4 million in research funding; produced more than 342 peer-reviewed publications; has given more than 696 scholarly presentations locally, nationally and internationally; and secured more than 1 billion media impressions!

Please note: HALO has no control over the nature, content and availability of the websites listed above. The inclusion of any link does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorsement of the views expressed therein.